Reelout is proud to collaborate with the Inter-Church Partnership and HARS Kingston in creating a Kingston Rainbow Refugee working group.

The Kingston Rainbow Refugee Project is a community Working Group comprised of representatives from the Reelout Arts Project, HARS Kingston and the Inter-Church Refugee Partnership in Kingston, ON Canada. We have formed to support, advocate and sponsor LGBTQ2 refugees.

For our first initiative, we have applied to sponsor a persecuted, gay, Nigerian refugee by the name of “Larry” (the anglicized name he has chosen for himself). We are reaching out to the people of Kingston to help give generously at this time to raise the funds required to successfully facilitate one year of financial assistance to new refugees.

Larry is from an area in southwest Nigeria and as a member of an LGBT rights group in University he has suffered dangerous attacks on his life. He has endured torture by fire, multiple beatings and sexual assault. After Nigeria’s anti-gay law was passed in 2014, Larry survived three attempts on his life by the Oodua People’s Congress (the local militia) while local police turned a blind eye. With the assistance of local clergy, Larry fled to Europe in April of 2014. Since that time, Larry has been suffering from depression and constant threat of deportation from Germany and was beginning to lose all hope until his story reached Kingston’s Inter-Church Refugee Partnership who has had great success in aiding Syrian refugee families to settle in Kingston. Rev. Steve Hoffard, Pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church reached out with Larry’s story to local charities that work to enrich the lives of LGBTQ2 residents. He had hopes that together we could rally our LGBTQ2 community and our allies to create a network of support.

Larry’s first language is English. He is a Biochemist, an experienced logistics manager, website developer, farmer, and livestock manager. He is highly employable.

Due to the nature of the immigration process, we are unsure as to when Larry’s paperwork will be approved and Larry can safely travel to Kingston but we expect it to be relatively soon.

We hope that you will help share this campaign with your friends, family and co-workers. This unique fundraising platform allows you to raise funds individually or as a team. You can set personal goals and challenge other peers to get involved.